German police announce ‘significant increase’ in child porn cases

The head of the federal criminal police office says more people are reporting images of abuse

One man was found to have stored huge amounts of child sexual abuse images (PA Wire)

Images and videos of sexual violence against children have increased significantly in Germany over the past year, the country’s top police official said.

More than 39,000 cases, which marks an increase of more than 108 per cent on the previous year, were flagged with the authorities in the past year, according to a special analysis of police crime statistics.

Holger Muench, the head of Germany’s federal criminal police office, said more people are reporting images of abuse than they had done previously.

The data include the distribution, acquisition, possession and production of depictions of sexual violence against children and teenagers, the Associated Press reported.

According to the report, known cases of child sexual abuse rose by 6.3 per cent last year to more than 15,500 but the annual figures only cover cases the police were made aware of.

Authorities estimate that one to two students per school class in Germany are affected by sexual violence.

“We very much welcome this: serious acts of violence against children and young people, as the weakest members of society, must be particularly outlawed, prosecuted and brought to an end,” Muench told reporters on Monday.

Meanwhile, Germany's independent commissioner on child sexual abuse, Kerstin Claus, said Europe has become a “hub for the dissemination of abuse images”.

She said: “We need increased European cooperation and significantly more investment in the human and technological resources of the investigating authorities.

“Every investigative success is important because it offers the chance to stop acute child abuse and prevent further acts.”

It came as police and prosecutors in Cologne provided an update about a suspected sexual child abuse case.

Cologne police president Falk Schnabel told reporters that a 44-year-old German man from Wermelskirchen near Cologne was arrested on suspicion of several cases of severe child abuse.

He was also suspected on being in possession of huge amounts of child abuse videos and photos.

“I am truly shocked and stunned,” Schnabel said. “I have not yet encountered such a level of inhuman brutality and callous indifference to the suffering of young children in pain with their cries and obvious fear.”

The suspect, whose name is not in the public domain due to Germany’s strict privacy rules, is married and is understood to have worked as a babysitter.

He abused babies as young as one month old and teenagers up to the age of 14. He was arrested in December.

Police said that the number of files found on his computer, dating from 1993 onwards, was so large that investigators have only been able to get through 10 per cent of the data.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.